Emergency Ward 10

Hello everyone,

I’m afraid me and Sylvie are both laid up with a cold, I ache all over. Sidney says its god’s way of letting you know you’re still alive. He’s no help at all.

Clint is looking after Sylvie at home but I think he’s getting on her nerves. He sits by her bed eating Toblerones and playing Christmas tunes on his Stylophone. She said it’s a relief when he goes to work.

Anyway, I’m not well enough to write this week, so we’ll catch up when one of us is better.

Don’t worry about us; we’ll be up and about in no time. It’s our Christmas party soon, so we need to get ourselves well for that!

Speak to you soon and keep yourselves wrapped up.

God bless, Joyce x

Moving on...

Hello, it’s Sylvie here.

Time seems to be flying past us. I’ve normally got my Christmas presents wrapped by now but I haven’t even made a start on the shopping. Clint’s usually sneaking around my bedroom looking in cupboards or under my bed at this time of year!

As you know, my head has been all over shop but me and Joyce are going to Trafford Centre on Saturday, so we should get it all done then. Though, if Joyce had her way, we’d be shopping at Help The Aged in precinct.

I saw that picture she put up of Bob Marley on her blog. She’s a daft apeth, even I know that’s not a roll up. I once found pot in Clint’s room a few year ago, he had those joint cigarettes rolled up in his sock drawer, I lit one and lay on his bed to see what it did.

I put on his Hi-Fi headphones and nodded off until ‘Crazy Horses’ blasted my blooming eardrums and then I burnt a hole in his Baywatch duvet. I put everything back and said nowt but now I know what he’s up to whenever I smell Fabreze on the landing and hear The Osmonds behind closed doors.

When I told Joyce what I’d done, she gave me one of her lectures and said I’ll be in a coffee bar banging bongos before long. I sometimes wonder if I slip into a time warp when I talk to her.

Well, there was a turn up for the book when Ted arrived at the hospital shop. Joyce got stuck under sink while she were hiding from him. She should talk to him but she’s as stubborn as a mule that one. ‘I want closure’, she said. I think she’s been watching too much Jeremy Kyle.

She got quite upset afterwards and I did feel sorry for her. She were all sixes and sevens and her nose was dripping like a tap, so I let her open a packet of Kleenex instead of the cheap ones. She livened up a bit after she had a cup-a-soup and a Viennese Whirl.

Joyce used to envy the way I loved Eric, she said that she never had butterflies with Ted, it were two months into their marriage before he untied her pussy bow.

Me and Eric were never shy in that department, which is what makes everything all the more upsetting. He didn’t want for anything with me, but he still wanted more with someone else.

I know he loved me. He just wasn’t in love with me anymore. Joyce reckons to be ‘in love’ and ‘loving someone’ are two different things. When you love somebody you want to be a part of their life, but when you're in love, you want the other person to be a part of your life.

She does talk a load of mumbo jumbo at times.

All I know, when I’m awake in the small hours, is that I want to feel something other than this.

Clint won’t discuss his dad, it’s like he never existed. Argos Alan said Clint broke his Casio keyboard from banging it so hard in his extension. That’s not like my son at all, He’s so gentle, though he does have big fat hands. Ivy’s are about same size at the moment.

It’s been a busy day at work, always is after weekend. Mainly DIY injuries or a weekend on the ale takes its toll. Young Kelly McIntyre came in for her ante-natal. Her nan normally comes with but she’d had a flare-up and had to sit on her inflatable ring at home.

Kelly showed me and Joyce her scan photo. I couldn’t make head nor tail of it. They all like potato heads to me. I never know what it is you’re supposed to say, ‘Oh, she has her mother’s eye sockets’.

She said it’s a girl and she plans to call her Destiny. Mind, she’s only fifteen, so I expect she’ll change it when she gets older. I remember when Kelly was a toddler, she’d always break the legs off her dolls. I hope she fares better with the bairn.

Kelly said she’s feeling run down now she’s six moths gone and that she’ll have to stop clubbing soon. Whenever I felt run-down during my pregnancy, I’d put my feet up, have a fag and a Babycham. It worked a treat.

Joyce gets on her moral high horse, as she always does. I don’t know what gets her goat more, Kelly’s tattoos or her being up the duff. She said kids are in too much of a hurry to grow up these days and she blames MFI. It took me a while to realise she meant MTV, dozy mare.

I said to her that nowt’s changed from when I were a young lass, kids today think they invented sex. Though, we had to learn the hard way. There were no do-gooders in dungarees, just back-street abortionists in curlers and a pinny. You had a couple of days in bed, went back to work and kept it buttoned.

I must tell you about Molly Chadwick, you’ll laugh at this,

Ey up, the fire alarm’s gone off. Ethel from cookery class has run in waving her arms about like a demented chimpanzee and screaming for us to scarper. What’s to do?

By heck, there’s thick smoke everywhere! Oh hell.

Wasted love

Hello there.

I wasn’t sure if I were going to come to class this evening as it’s been one hell of a week, the worst of my life.

I had to go to Scarborough last Monday to see Don about an insurance policy that I didn’t know existed. It turns out there were a mix up at t’ office.

As I walked in and saw Don’s face, I wondered what on earth had happened. I knew it were bad news as he got out a bottle of brandy from top filing drawer and two glasses which needed a good wipe, but I said nowt.

He told me the payout was for S.E Shuttleworth, which is my name, so now you know. Turns out it were for a Samuel Eric who’s coming up to his 18th birthday.

Samuel is Eric’s love-child.

Eric had been living a double life since 1988 with that Doreen Bradley after her husband got mowed down by a bus for the disabled in town centre.

Don said he knew about the affair and made it clear that he didn’t approve. He couldn’t do anything to make him see sense. He said Eric always loved me and Clint…but he would say that, wouldn’t he?

I feel like my insides have been put through wringer, Eric always said he didn’t want any more kids, even though I was desperate for a little girl. All along, he were planning a family with that cheap Jezebel. And to rub salt into wound, Samuel is his father’s name.

Apparently, just before Eric passed away, he and that woman bought an apartment in Spain where she now lives with her son. That’s why Eric kept popping over on his own, to buy a property for them. He had no intention of me and our Clint moving out there.

I asked Don if Eric were planning to retire with them in Spain but he wouldn’t answer, he just stared at the bottom of his glass. That answered my question more than any words could.

My whole world has fallen apart, I did everything for that man. I never thought he would be the one to hurt me like this.

I went to see Lil at the home and as soon as she saw my face, she knew. She said she had suspected for some time but hoped she were wrong. She said sometimes folk lose their way while trying to protect those they love. She’s fading into her own sunset but still has her marbles.

But it doesn’t wash with me. Eric was a selfish man who wanted it all and what really gets my goat is that he never showed much affection towards our Clint, he was probably too busy playing footie with his other son. If he were still alive, I’d kill him for what he’s done to our family.

I told Clint what had happened and he locked himself in his room and blasted out his Slade records. I usually tell him off for that as Noddy’s voice grates on me but I let it go on this occasion.

I’ve tried to think of all the signs and, if I’m honest, I had my suspicions that Eric were up to no good but nothing like this. I still can’t believe he was capable of such deception.

He would always disappear each Christmas day, and one time Clint was walking back from garage shop (he likes those pepperoni sticks), and saw Eric in t’ phone box, he said he were leaning on door and crying. I said he had probably decided to call his Aunt Lil and got emotional, but I thought it were odd at time as we have two phones in the flat.

I don’t understand what he saw in that Doreen, she were lathered in make up and had a hump on her back. There were nowt about her that I could see.

When I think back to the times I visited him in Scarborough, he must have been with her. I never met the kiddie as Eric stopped me from visiting. He said it would be a wasted journey if he had to go off on an emergency call.

He were a bloody insurance rep not a fireman.

But I did as I were told and let him get on with his work. I feel I’ve lost him all over again, he were the love of my life but I wasn’t his.

We used to sit at home and play records in t’ evening. We’d snuggle up on settee while he’d kick off his slippers and put his feet up on pouffe. He’d kiss the top of my head and say ‘You think life is the way Frank Sinatra sings’, that always made me laugh. I thought no man could ever love me the way my Eric did.

You see, I gave my life to him, that were my mistake. I never kept anything back for myself. It took me a few years to get on with things after he died. And the hospital shop were the saving of me, that and my darling son.

Molly Chadwick once said to me ‘You can’t turn back the clock but you can wind it up again’. I just don’t know if I’m strong enough to do it all over again.

I haven’t been back to Eric’s grave as yet. I normally go of a Sunday before I visit Lil at the home. His tombstone has the inscription ‘A heart that loves is always young’. He’d written that inside the first Valentine card he ever sent me. I feel like going up there with a can of spray paint and spraying ‘Liar!’ all over it.

I stayed with Joyce last Friday night as Mandy was over at ours and I couldn’t face her mithering. We had a long chat into the night and got a bit tipsy as we listened to Andy Williams and mulled over our pasts.

I know Joyce still loves her Ted but you’ll not get her to admit it. She’s much stronger than me. I’m all front, she’s probably the only one who really knows that.

After a few glasses of Asti, we had a dance in her front room but she kept trying to lead. We must have looked a right pair of gobbins.

Joyce said I should see her neighbour the counsellor. I don’t see point, I can only feel what I’m going to feel, she can’t change that. Besides, I don’t want to discuss my private life with a stranger in a jumpsuit.

Clint bought me roses to cheer me up, he’s such a thoughtful lad and clearly doesn’t take after his dad. I need to concentrate on him as he doesn’t talk about his feelings and bottles them up which brings on his hives.

He wants to go over to Spain and have it out with that tart but I said that won’t achieve anything right now and I don’t want him arguing with the young lad, it’s not his fault.

Clint used to get picked on quite a bit a school and Eric once said that he fights like he hasn’t got a brother - only he does have one. How could he be so cruel? But I’ll bide my time and then Doreen had better watch out. I’ll flatten that bloody hump of hers, so help me.

Thank you for listening, I’m not sure who’s out there but it helps to write it down. Clint just sent me a text, he’s outside with Argos Alan and they’re taking me to Gold Rush club. I have to face folk sooner or later but I just want to hide away and never be found.

I’ll leave you with a video of a song that Eric used to play when he was on t’ road, he said it reminded him of me. He’s gone and spoilt everything now, including my memories. They were all I had left of us.

Oh heck, whatever am I going to do?

Joyce will be with you next time. She covered my shifts all last week. Annabel came in to help and colour co-ordinated all the sweets.

Joyce reckons she must have that impulsive disorder.

Speak again soon.

Cheerio for now. Love from Sylvie xx